The Chinese Olympic Committee's Anti-doping Commission has been awarded the ISO 9001:2000 Certificate, a world-wide standard for management of quality services.

The award marks a major breakthrough in China's efforts to prevent doping.

"The award of the certificate, which makes China one of the few countries in the world to receive that honor, indicates the level of doping control has entered a new era in this country," said Li Furong, vice minister of the State General Administration of Sports and director of the China Anti-doping Commission.

The commission started to establish the system in March 2001 and on August 1, 2003 the doping control system was officially put into practice.

The system for doping control, the establishment of which was a joint effort with the Norway Anti-doping Organization, is based upon the internationally recognized ISO 9001 standard and the International Standard for Doping Control, which is the most comprehensive standard for planning and conducting doping controls.

It includes doping control, supports, and quality management.

"The certificate award shows that China's doping management is certified in compliance with international standards, together with its doping testing system, which has already been under the global standard for a long time," said Shi Kangcheng, director of China Anti-doping Office. "Our drug testing lab has passed the International Olympic Committee (IOC) A level examination for 15 successive years."

According to Shi, the qualified doping control system will avoid testing mistakes such as those in samples collected from female weightlifter Shang Shichun.

Shang, who took the gold medal in the 75-kilo class at last year's world championships in Vancouver, failed a drug test afterwards but pleaded innocence because of mistakes in the sampling process.

"The certificate for our doping control system ensures a fair and healthy environment for athletes to compete in, qualifies China for shouldering international doping control tasks, and prepares China for 2008 Beijing Olympics technically," said Shi.

Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), has also expressed the determination of BOCOG in the anti-doping field.

According to Jiang, the BOCOG will do more work, such as cooperating with the IOC to strengthen training on anti-doping, sending senior supervisors to the Athens Olympics in August to gain more experience, and formulating an "Olympic Anti-doping Strategic Plan".

"We will also initiate the '2008 Beijing Olympics Drug Testing Program' together with Chinese Olympic Committee to ensure the Beijing Olympics are a free of doping," said Jiang.

(China Daily April 17, 2004)